cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7489412
cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/23631
Demonstrators occupied the lobby of a Hilton Garden Inn in Manhattan on January 27. Protesters took over the lobby, demanding that the corporation leave Manhattan and stop cooperating with ICE.
Manhattan, New York, Tuesday Evening: The New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested dozens of protesters on Tuesday evening at an anti-ICE protest inside a Manhattan hotel, marking the first mass arrest under the new administration of New York City’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani.… https://t.co/f9nuDIsaF8 pic.twitter.com/H6vwc9sajz
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) January 28, 2026
Hilton has faced backlash nationwide due to the fact that they are housing ICE agents all around the country, including in Minneapolis, where tens of thousands of people are protesting ICE and demanding justice for Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Protesters were arrested by the NYPD unit in charge of counterterrorism and protest control, the Special Response Group (SRG).
Zohran Mamdani, along with other social-democratic officials within the Democratic Party, have recently called for ICE to be abolished in the wake of popular outrage against Trump’s immigration crackdown. At the same time, he has distanced himself from calls he made to defund the NYPD during his campaign; he even apologized for his statements on the racist character of the police, committing that his office would work together with the police to “keep New York City safe.”
But those of us who protested the genocide in Palestine know that NYPD doesn’t care about our safety. They are the ones who crack down on us when we take the streets and our school campuses to demand an end to the United States’s complicity in the murder of tens of thousands of people.
When asked about the arrests at a press conference, Mamdani reiterated his promise to work with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to disband the infamous SRG unit because, “We don’t believe there should be a unit that has both counterterrorism responsibilities and responsibilities to responding to protests.” Mamdani went on to say that that NYPD has the responsibility to respond to protests before going on to say, in the very same breath, that he praised protesters who are standing up against ICE. This double-speak shows exactly the contradiction facing Mamdani as mayor of the finance capital of the United States.
While politically Mamdani has room to call for the abolition of ICE because the slogan has become so deeply felt among the population and so could make people more sympathetic to the Democratic Party, he is at the head of one of the most brutal, racist police forces in the country; NYPD has collaborated with ICE for decades and today represses us for protesting their attacks on immigrants. Put simply, you cannot be a socialist who fights for the rights of workers and the oppressed and also be the head of NYPD which represses their movements.
“La migra! La policía! Son la misma porquería.” We have learned the meaning of those words from our immigrant siblings who are fighting ICE terror. ICE and the police are parts of the same system that targets and oppresses immigrants and the entire working class — both parties of the ruling class support that system. It’s time that we — and especially the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) who organized tens of thousands of people to elect Mamdani on the promise that he would fight for the rights of the working class and oppressed — break with the Democratic Party. DSA must put all its efforts toward organizing against ICE in our workplaces and schools, at the same time that we build the forces for a socialist party for and made up of the working class — one that represents our interests and puts all its efforts to build the national strike we need to defeat the reactionary offensive against the most vulnerable of our class.
The post The First Mass Arrest on Zohran Mamdani’s Watch Targeted Anti-ICE Protesters appeared first on Left Voice.
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